Tuesday, 9 July 2013

Casting Out

Have you ever found yourself in one of those auditions where you start to question what on earth you're doing with your life? Have you entered a room full of hope for your career and left with the sting of disappointment embedded in your soul? Well, I'd love to hear about them.

Maybe you've been asked to do something at an audition so ridiculous that you can actually feel your pride leave your body and you watch it walk out the door? Or have you been put in situation that's made you want to call the police instead of your agent?

I'm looking to put together a piece on the worst that castings have thrown at us and, as I'm sure the world is sick of hearing about my tales, I'd love to hear about yours. Also, as I write about the subject so much, it'd be lovely to have some real horrors to back me up when I say that castings can be some of the most terrifying and gut-wrenching things an actor can put themselves through. So, if you've got one that you'd like to tell me about then please email me on castingcallwoe@gmail.com.

Of course, I completely understand the importance of anonymity so if you'd prefer your story remained anonymous then please just let me know.

I auditioned for a 'BBC comedy pilot' at the directors house in Clapham. Clapham, I thought initially, was a nice neighbourhood. As I cursed Google maps on my failing iPhone 3s, which took me deep into an estate, to some garages that'd seen better days, or even the odd murder, down an estate car park. I began thinking what an idiot I was for firstly going to someones house I had never met and hadn't checked out the credentials of. I began thinking, "tonight Matthew" I'm going to be...deaded, raped, eaten by wild dogs, then my bones pecked at by vicious local pigeons, then my rotten remains scraped up, transported in a dirty bucket to be deep fried in batter and sold at the local Dallas/Perfect/Kentucky fried Chicken establishment for local children to have for breakfast with a Capri-Sun.My sense got the better of me, tracing my steps back down the dark scary road homebound, in the distance I heard the gaggle of what was unmistakably, inimitably a bunch of actors. Queuing. Queuing to audition in a damp garage in an under-lit car park in the oppressive grim shadow of a tower block of flats, brilliant. I waited a full 30 minutes in the cold drizzly dark November night to get in.Inside the garage, glad to be alive, my spirits lifted at the sight of the mustard shag of the carpeted (damp) walls. A combi-video/tv had been installed high (as high up as a 6 foot garage roof will allow) up with a looping video of a short film and a montage of known films. Some effort had been made here. There were even rumpled, damp certificates that had slipped down in their Ikea frames, celebrating achievements of 1 day courses of film-making taken. I thought myself ridiculous for judging what I now deemed entrepreneurial means of this buck of a filmmaker. Someone with a headset popped his head around a door and handed me a script. I gave my ident to camera, when I say camera. I began to again feel nervous, seeing what couldn't have been dissimilar to what was used in the making of the Blair Witch film, his battery kept running out, too. An inner monologue of tutting to myself began.Random bods kept walking in and out of the 'studio'. The director asked me about what I'd been up to- that talk, but I kept it breezy, but the intrusions taking his focus out of the door continued, he carried on conversing with said intruders. In my mind I was tapping my foot impatiently, but I continued to smile, knowing he wasn't listening so I stopped and patiently waited for his attention again. I gave my reading and at one point during this he left the 'room' and came back in again! I got to the bottom of the text I was asked to loosely improvise with, (of course at this point I was not expecting a scripted "BBC Pilot" masterpiece), when he announced, "Oh sorry yeah, the camera wasn't on". I stood up, thankful I wasn't dead, didn't have to take my clothes off, and like an idiot, politely announced (it was about 8.20pm) "I'm sure you've got lots of others to see, (there was still a queue after me) perhaps if you don't find what you need, we could reschedule, it's just that I have another ‘meeting’ to go to". I wanted to make a scene, slam the rising garage door down behind me, bellowing to the queue of actors behind me not to bother, turn back run save yourselves. However, perhaps this guy could in fact be the next maverick Tarantino and I'd never forgive myself for blacklisting myself with such a talent, that and I thought, well perhaps this terrific experience that they were about to have may at least offer them some anecdotal fodder for a quippy entry on a blog at some point? The meeting I'd disclosed I was so hurriedly needing to get to was with a £1.99 kids meal from the local Randy's-Ranch-style-Random-fried chicken round the corner. I sat there contemplating my sad and desperate life with a tropical squeezey juice and ate the remains of a deep fried actress and cried on the way home. FML.